It wasn’t easy for Venus Williams, and that’s just about the way it goes for her nowadays.
Williams looked shaky at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday, the opening day of the US Open, when she barely managed to shake off unseeded 44-year-old Japanese challenger Kimiko Date-Krumm. Williams dropped the first set, then almost lost a commanding lead in the third, eventually beating Date-Krumm, 2-6, 6-3, 6-3.
“When you step out on the court, I don’t think anybody thinks about age,” the 34-year-old Williams said. “Because if you’re out on this tour, it means you deserve to be here. You’ve got the skill. It must mean you know how to play. So at that point it’s just a number.”
Coming in as the 19th seed in the women’s singles draw, Williams is a long way from her dominant days, a full six years gone by since the most recent of her seven Grand Slam singles titles and 13 years removed from her last win in Flushing Meadows.
Williams has also battled Sjogren’s Syndrome, an autoimmune deficiency that had created pain and swelling in her joints.
She had to withdraw from the US Open in 2011 because of the disease, and it pretty well derailed her career.
Yet she has shown a bit of promise this season, winning a WTA event in Dubai in February, as well as making it to the finals of an event in Montreal this month. Both events were on hard courts — the same surface as at Flushing Meadows — yet Williams wasn’t exactly pleased with a tough first-round match.
“I was feeling better this summer and I had some better results,” she said. “I never want to play three-setters. It’s not in the plan. Somehow I ended up in these matches. I would like to think the more I play, the better I’ll get at closing it out.”
After dropping the first set with some rather poor play, Williams took control in the second, when both players also had to contend with a pesky bee that neither wanted to swat and was eventually ushered away in a towel by a ball girl.
“She [Date-Krumm] has so much class she didn’t swat it,” Williams joked. “So once it was my turn, then I think I would have been remiss to swat it myself.
“I guess,” Williams said about the bee, “he’s on his way now.”
Williams went up 5-0 in the third set, but allowed Date-Krumm to fight back and make it a bit of a match. The grind might also eventually get to Williams, who continues to play doubles with her younger sister, Serena.
“Not the ideal start,” Williams said, “but [Date-Krumm] is a tricky player.”
At some point, it’s only inevitable retirement becomes a topic of discussion. Williams was not evasive when asked if that is something that has crossed her mind, but rather defiant in her assertion she still has a lot of good tennis in her.
“When you’re 16 [years old], 25 is a few decades away,” Williams said. “Now 25 is literally a decade behind me. But I’m going to stay as long as I’m playing well and as long as there is an opportunity, as long as I want to be here. As long as I’m here, it’s because I want to.”